Exploring visual journalism

The desegregation of Northwood Theatre

Fifty years ago this week, the matinee of the Disney movie “In Search of the Castaways” played to the Northwood’s first-ever integrated audience, writes Jean Marbella. Look back at photos of Northwood Theatre and the student protesters who fought for its desegregation.

Nov. 24, 1950: The new Northwood Shopping Center as published in the Evening Sun. (Frank Kalita/Baltimore Sun)

Apr. 30, 1955: In a test of Segregation laws, an interracial group of students tried to gain entrance into the Northwood theater. None were admitted. — This photo accompanied the story ‘Passive Resistance’ as published in the Morning Sun. (Photographer unknown/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 19, 1963: A man blocks the entrance to the Northwood Theater where about 150 members of the Civic Interest Group demonstrated last night. All were arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct during the protest against segregation at the theater. — This photo was published under the headline ‘DOORS BARRED.’ (William L. LaForce/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 20, 1963: Demonstrators parade outside the City Hall while police officials and city legal officers discuss the Northwood Theater impasse with a theater representatives and integrationists in the Mayor’s office. — This photo accompanied the story ‘City Hall Protest’ published on Feb. 21, 1963 in the Morning Sun. (Ellis Malashuk/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 21, 1963. Crowded women’s quarters at the City Jail held 208 prisoners last night as Northwood Theater demonstrators jammed the section past its theoretical capacity of 140. Lt. James craig said, ‘We don’t hardly have any room.’ — This photo was published under the headline ‘Squeezed In.’ (William Mortimer/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 22, 1963: Joyce Dennison, 21, Morgan State (L) and Harriett Cohen, Goucher College, study in the City Jail after being arrested with 341 others while demonstrating outside of the Northwood Theater. (Photographer unknown/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 22, 1963: Goucher College and Morgan College students leave the City Jail after being released without bail. They had taken part in demonstrations to integrate the Northwood Theater which now agrees to admit African Americans. None of the arrested demonstrators have been indicted on the trespassing charges. — This photo was published under the headline ‘Out of Jail’ in the Evening Sun. (Frank Gardina/Baltimore Sun)

Feb. 22,1963: Student demonstrators release their emotions as they are released from the City Jail. — This photo was published in the Morning Sun under the headline ‘Northwood Theater Desegregation.’ (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)

Movie tickets at the Northwood Theatre cost just 90 cents back in 1963. But for some, the price of admission was considerably higher.

It took years of picketing and nights in jail for hundreds of African-American college students and their supporters before the theater in the Hillen neighborhood of Baltimore dropped its whites-only policy. Fifty years ago this week, the matinee of the Disney movie “In Search of the Castaways” played to the Northwood’s first-ever integrated audience.

“It was just something in my opinion that needed to be done,” said Joyce I. Dennison, 71, who, as a student at Morgan State College, joined the protests that led to the theater’s desegregation on Feb. 22, 1963.

“You say you want to open a facility to the public — we are part of the public.”

One Comment

I don’t know if this happened before this protest, but as a seven year old black child with my friend Mitchell and his older sister Sharon (also black children), we may have accidentlly integrated the theater in 1962. My mom let me go with Mitchell and his sister Sharon to what was supposed to be “Snow White,” at a movie theater. I think Mitchell’s older sister (about three years older?) got confused and took us to the Northwood Theater. As children, we knew nothing about segregation, but they let us in anyway. The movie was “Gypsy” starring Natalie Wood and it was not the animated Snow White I was promised. I remember being incredibly bored and I kept asking Sharon when Snow White was gonna be on? It turned out we were in the wrong theater. It never came on. They probably let us in because hardly anyone was in there and they needed lunch money.

We actually thought nothing of being in there. Gypsy just was not a film for a seven year old. Me:”Oh no! They’re singing?! Ugh!” At that age Ethel Merman could not beat the Seven Dwarfs.

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